The USS Hornet CV-12 is the eighth US ship to carry the
Hornet name. The first was commissioned in 1775 and battled the
British in the Revolutionary war. The second Hornet commissioned
in 1805 gained fame in America's battle against the Barbary
Pirates and landed Marines on the shores of Tripoli. The seventh
Hornet (CV-8) launched 16 Army B-25s to strike the Japanese home
islands in one of the most daring raids in the history of
warfare, the "Doolittle Raid". She went on to fight
at the Battle of Midway and was lost to an overwhelming air
attack at the Battle of Santa Cruz.

The eighth USS Hornet, the one currently docked in Alameda,
was commissioned in 1943 at the height of the war in the
Pacific. She quickly became one of the most highly decorated
ships in the Navy. She destroyed 1,410 Japanese aircraft and
destroyed or damaged 1,269,710 tons of enemy shipping. Ten Hornet
pilots attained "Ace in a Day" status. She supported
nearly every Pacific amphibious landing after March 1944 and
struck the critical first hits in sinking the super battleship
Yamato. Her pilots are also credited with the first strikes
against Tokyo since the 1942 Doolittle Raid. During the cold war
the Hornet had the honor of recovering astronauts from both the
Apollo 11 and 12 missions.

Her impressive record did not come without cost. An aircraft
carrier, in times of war or peace, is a dangerous place. Sailors
have walked into aircraft's spinning props, been sucked into
their air intakes, and blown off deck by their exhaust. Dropped
ordnance has exploded, burning and maiming sailors. Snapping
flight arrest cables are known to have decapitated at least
three men on the USS Hornet. All told, in her 27
years of active service, more than 300 people lost their lives
aboard ship. The majority claimed during combat, others from
these horrendous shipboard accidents, still others from suicide.
The USS Hornet has the dubious honor for having the highest
suicide rate in the Navy.

It is, perhaps, the Hornet's tragedy soaked history that has
caused it to become America's most haunted ship. Crew and
visitor alike have reported an amazing number of strange
incidents, sightings, and sounds. Doors opening and closing by
themselves, tools that vanish only to reappear after a long
search, objects that move across floors or fall off shelves
without reason, spectral sailors that move through the ship as
if carrying out orders from another age, toilets that flush
themselves, eerie presences felt, and feelings of being grabbed
or pushed when no one is around.

For the December 2000 issue of Naval History Magazine, Lily
MacKenzie interviewed several people associated with the ship.
One of them was an electrician named Derek Lyon-McKeil.
Lyon-McKeil, originally skeptical of ghosts and the paranormal,
described an incident that occurred during fleet week in 1995
when "five or six" volunteers were staying aboard the
ship:

"We'd all just bunked down, and we had a rule. No exploring.
All of a sudden, I heard this banging noise like someone was
opening the hatches who shouldn't have been. Peter Clayton, our
supervisor, came charging around, saying, "Okay, who's
sneaking around opening hatches?" We realized that everyone
in the group was there. As we were all standing there staring at
each other, we heard it again. At that point, we were pretty
secure. It couldn't have been anyone who'd gotten aboard."

Another member of that same group, Keith LaDue, had another
encounter several years later while painting atop a scissor lift.

"I was like at 28 feet, stretched to the
maximum. I was up there until about 8:30 at night, and I was by
myself on the ship.

I wanted to
finish the section I was working on before I left. When I had
still about two to three gallons of paint left in my machine, I
started hearing voices, aircraft crews talking shop talk,
dropping tools, and working on airplanes, talking about the
airplanes they were working on, and parts, and home.

I thought, 'Wait a minute, come on guys, I'm almost done for the
night. Can you let me finish? Let me get down from here. This is
really starting to spook me.' And it stopped."

The experiences of Lyon-McKeil and LaDue are not isolated
incidents. A San Jose Mercury News article by Dana Hull
describes a gathering of more than 200 that turned out on the
ship to hear from a local psychic, Aann Golemac of Alameda.
Nearly 40 people, many self-proclaimed skeptics, described
similar experiences. One of them, Alan McKean, said:

"I'm not a true believer in all of that stuff. But I saw
what I saw. One day I saw an officer in khakis descending the
ladder to the next deck. I followed him and he was gone. I have
no explanation for it."

Golemac describes the spirits of the Hornet as cohesive and
positive, and they are making themselves known because they want
the restoration work to continue and they want their stories to
be told.

Our visit to the USS Hornet was largely uneventful but there
were several parts of the ship below decks where we did get a
very uneasy feeling. We ventured into one section of crew
quarters that was lit only indirectly by a red light at the end
of a corridor. This generally would mean that you weren't
supposed to be there but I took a few steps in just to get a
feeling for the place.

The Hauntmistress, being the
consummate chicken that she is, would not go in. The room was
cold. Not necessarily abnormally cold as the ship is made of
steel and it was a cool day but enough that you would notice it
was cooler than other parts of the ship we had come through. It
was also quiet. Again, not something you would generally notice
but with a ship full of visitors walking about it stood out in
my mind.

While I stood there in the near darkness soaking up the
atmosphere and trying to see what was in this room I got the
strong feeling that I wasn't alone. That same type of feeling
you get when somebody gets inside your personal space. The hairs
on the back of my neck stood up and I got goose pimples on my
forearms. I got the strong impression that somebody, something
was moving toward me or perhaps circling around me. I backed up
toward the hatch I came through and stepped out. The
Hauntmistress grabbed me and pulled me away as she started to get nervous.

Like I said, it was uneventful, nothing actually happened but a very
odd experience in that one part of the ship. Imagination?
Probably, but that's what makes it fun.

Whether you believe in ghosts or not the USS Hornet is a
proud reminder of our nation's heritage and worth a visit for
this alone. Who knows, maybe you'll be counted among the lucky
ranks of those that the ghosts of the Grey Lady reveal
themselves to.

Roger K Bence, Blue Springs, MO - During a delivery of deck coat for the Carl Vinson at Bremerton
during Seattle's Fleet Week I was allowed the opportunity for a private
tour of the Hornet prior to her decommissioning. I don't remember why
she was there but I do recall my experience while walking with my escort
across the hanger deck. I noticed a strong odor of pipe tobacco in an
area with no one around coming from the direction of the forward
elevator. Turning toward it, I glimpsed a shadowy figure of someone in
WWII Navy khaki smoking pipe in the elevator opening. Then he was gone.
The escort told me others had also seen this apparition and many
believed him to be the air boss killed in the battle of midway. I have
experienced other incidents of the supernatural and paranormal so I can
not dismiss this. I believe I actually saw the trapped spirit of someone
who died violently and may blame himself for the deaths of others.